hurt
by Emmel1118
Summary: After all these years, it takes a phone call to tear her to pieces. A voice, cracking and breaking and hurting, on the other end of the line says two words and suddenly, the bottom of her world has tumbled away and she's falling, falling, falling. "Derek's dead." - Addie finds out about Derek, oneshot


_hurt_

 _regrets collect like old friends,_

 _here to relieve your darkest moments,_

 _shake it out, florence + the machine_

...

After all these years, it takes a phone call to tear her to pieces.

The voice, cracking and breaking and _hurting_ , on the other end of the line says two words and suddenly, the bottom of her world has tumbled away and she's falling, falling, falling.

"Derek's dead." Amy says it quietly, softly, her voice betraying her own heartbreak.

And oh god, it hurts. And then, just as suddenly as it started, it stops and she's standing in her kitchen - a lifetime away from that perfect little New York brownstone where she lived with a man she loved more than anything - clutching the phone in her hand so tight her knuckles are white, Jake and Henry in the other room, playing, having fun and she feels numb. Completely and utterly numb.

"Derek's dead?" Addison Montgomery replies, her voice wavering, hesitant, unable to fully understand the words flooding out of her mouth.

"Yeah."

...

She walks through the next few days without really noticing. Life buzzes past, things happen but they pale in comparison to the gulf that's now in her chest.

Because he's dead.

Oh god.

She throws up into a waste paper basket after one of her patients leaves because she suddenly remembers Amy's voice on the phone telling her the unthinkable.

She goes to bed long before Jake because she can't face another minute awake knowing that somewhere on the opposite coast, Derek - the kind handsome man she married age twenty-four when spring was just starting to stamp its signature on the surroundings, the man who she broke the heart of by sleeping with his best friend because she thought he no longer loved her, the man who broke her heart in return by running halfway across the country and falling in love with another woman - is lying, lifeless – dead.

...

Then, when work finishes on the fifth day after Amy called her, it's like a dam breaks. The numbness finally makes way for something else, fading and being replaced by a chasm of bleak sadness of a type she's never felt before.

She cries, massive choking sobs that shake her body and reduce her to nothing more than a quivering wreck.

Memories flash by her eyes and it just makes her cry harder, because he's dead, dead, dead, dead! Derek, oh god, Derek, her ex-husband who she thought she had moved on from, dead? How could he be dead? He was Derek.

She's a broken mess at her desk, her mascara running, her heart breaking, feeling utterly helpless.

When Mark died, a part of her broke and she felt empty inside, like a piece of her was missing. It hurt, god dammit, it hurt. But this is different, this hurts differently, like the whole world has shifted and changed irrevocably. She can remember every moment, every smile – memories she thought had faded and disappeared, but they just hurt now.

The door opens, but she can't see who it is through the tears. She doesn't hang around to hear the inevitable questions but she still feels the prying eyes on her as she flees the room as quickly as possible.

...

She told Derek once that she put him in a box in her head. That to function and live; everything they shared, all the love she felt for him, went into a box in the back of her head.

Well, that box is well and truly open now.

And with the box open, she knows that in the back of her head, she always knew she still loved him.

Fifteen years spent together, eleven years of marriage - she's stupid to think that just because they split up that it just went away. Something like that, something that shaped her so completely as a person - how could that just cease to matter? There's always going to be a part of her that is still the girl who turned up to morning lectures and fell in love with the handsome, dashing Derek Shepherd.

This new life, her one in LA with Henry and Jake - it matters, of course it does. She loves Jake there's no disputing that, and Derek, he loves Meredith – loved. But all their history, all the things they shared and suffered and went through - that matters too.

…

She tells herself she's not going to go to the funeral. Amy told her the details on the phone, but she doesn't feel like she'll be welcome - and added to that, she still hasn't told Jake and she can't just disappear on him.

But then, two days before, when the grief kicks her in the chest when she remembers a moment – a snap shot of the past – she knows.

It's just – sitting in front of the TV, his arm curled round her shoulder, the first day they moved in together, boxes of her stuff everywhere – but it's enough.

She knows then, that she has to go.

…

She tells Jake late one evening when Henry is asleep. She's had some wine so she figures she's drunk enough to deal with it.

She's wrong.

The words catch on her tongue, and she can't form then properly.

She stutters out something that catches Jake's attention. He turns to look at her. She finds the words then.

"My ex-husband is dead."

She told herself she wouldn't cry. But, oh, she does.

…

Jake offers to come, but she says this is something she has to do alone so he stays in LA with Henry.

When the plane lands in Seattle – rainy old Seattle, the city she hates because it broke her heart – she wants to cry, she feels sick, she wants to catch the next plane out of there. But she doesn't.

She puts one foot in front of the other instead.

…

She didn't tell anyone she was coming. Not even Amy, no one.

Faces flicker with surprise as she enters the church – even a hint of anger that she dares show her face, but she knows she had to come, to say goodbye.

When the service is over, she walks out, ignoring the whispers, the calls. She doesn't want to talk to anyone.

Amy follows her and finds her by the church gate. They stand in silence – what is there to say? Then Amy pulls in her into a hug.

Amy looks up at her, with wild, pained eyes and says "Thank you," and Addie knows she made the right decision.

…

She goes to her hotel room. Raids the mini-bar of the outrageously expensive alcohol, not caring about the price.

She watches crap TV, as she slowly gets more and more drunk. She hopes that by the morning she'll be alright to fly, but she doesn't really care because all that matters right now is that the pain in her chest goes away and alcohol is the best solution to that particular problem.

What she doesn't expect, however, is a knock at her door.

…

She expects room service, a hotel employee – Amy at a push, but not her, never her – not the woman her husband left her for.

She doesn't expect Meredith Grey to be standing at her her hotel room door, but here she is.

…

Addie doesn't know why she's there, but soon she realises - the other woman is just as drunk as her.

She's yelling, screaming about what right does she have to turn up at the funeral, hurtful things – truthful things, that she never would say if she had a clear head.

She knew her and Meredith never really saw eye to eye – Derek put them on opposite sides by default, but she grew to respect the woman.

And she loved Derek too, so she understands the anger, the pain that's finding an outlet in this hotel room. So she takes a breath, controlling the swirling emotions through the haze of alcohol and pain.

"I came because he was my husband too."

Her words silence Meredith. It sneaks through the amour, through the alcohol and the anger and inside. They meet gazes, and all of a sudden it all falls away. Addie can see the pain in her own eyes reflected back at her, as a tear trickles down Meredith's face.

The younger woman speaks softly, brokenly - "It fucking hurts."

Addie nods. "It fucking hurts," she repeats, meaning every syllable just as much.

…

She flies back to LA the following morning, with a banging headache and an empty heart.

…

Jake pulls her into a hug the moment she gets home.

She smiles, weakly. Jake understands and gives her space.

She wonders how long the pain will take to ease.

She wonders if it ever will.


End file.
